Remember: for the last couple of years, the federal government made it even harder for charities to meddle in politics. The crackdown has taken its toll on some organizations that have been perceived to be promoting causes at odds with the government -- environmentalists in particular.

But now we seem to have a case of politics meddling in a charity -- what are the rules about that?

Or, if you want to make that question a bit sharper: Has the Prime Minister's Office or New Brunswick MP Rob Moore endangered the charitable status of the embattled Grace Foundation?

The Barrie Advance has
a story "outing" the PMO
as the source of documents circulated to multiple news outlets yesterday, attempting to sow controversy over Justin Trudeau's speaking engagements in 2006 and 2007.

The Star
was among those recipients. And why didn't we say where the documents came from? Well, because the PMO official asked first. This seems to be the big difference between how the PMO approached national and local media yesterday. Before I was sent the documents, there was a conversation about the conditions surrounding their release.

For the record, it was a real conversation. I asked repeatedly why the PMO, and not the Conservative party, was making this offer. Though the distinction may seem technical to many, it's an important one. The Prime Minister's Office is supposed to represent all Canadians, including ones the Conservatives don't like. This is why the staffers get paid their public salaries -- ie, by you and me. This is why they get extra-special security clearance; so they can be trusted with sensitive information -- not available to other opposition parties, or, we presume, the Conservative party. The official told me that the PMO was simply "contrasting" leaders, as is its job. I wondered to myself if this would include going through, say, tax records of other leaders, but I decided that was a question for another day.

I did ask whether public money had been spent researching the documents they sent. No, I was emphatically told. I asked again, late in the day, if the replies they were sending to my queries were also off the record. Yes, that was the deal, I was told.

Here is what the Conservatives had to say about the by-election in Labrador tonight, in an email sent to the press gallery. As I understand this message, the Liberals should have done a lot better; the Conservatives were counting on a much bigger defeat. (Which is another story, you should probably raise with them.)

please distribute to the Gallery:

As we know, majority governments do not usually win by-elections.

In fact, Liberals have won the riding of Labrador in every election in history except for two, so we are not surprised with these results.

What is surprising is the collapse of the Liberal support during this by-election. When this by-election was called the Liberals had a 43-point lead in the polls. Since electing Justin Trudeau as leader and having him personally campaign there, they have dropped 20 points in Labrador. That’s a significant drop in only a few weeks. Labradorians were able to see firsthand how Justin Trudeau is in over his head.

Back in 1994, the newly elected Reform Party caucus (which included a young fellow named Stephen Harper) announced that it would be asking questions faxed to its offices by ordinary Canadians. Here's one of the first questions that Harper's boss at the time, Reform Party leader Preston Manning, asked after taking his seat in the opposition benches in the Commons.

Nothing focuses the citizens' minds more than waste/misuse of money -- which is why we're seeing a large amount of attention on the
controversy over Senate living expenses
, and whether some senators were claiming inappropriate (if not illegal) payments from the public purse. "It's. Your. Money," the CBC solemnly announced tonight when it was previewing its story on the Senate mess.

Here is what I keep wondering, though -- is it really about the money?

If money is the only issue, then everyone can calm down once the "taxpayers" have the cash back in their wallets. Once again, it's reduced to another story of Canadian politics as a simple business transaction: your money, their entititlements, and so on. Government as a retail store: I'm not satisfied; I want my money back.

At the risk of committing sociology, let's ask: why aren't we (and I mean citizens, not journalists) asking some harder questions about the "root causes" surrounding that other oft-used phrase -- "lack of accountability?" Where did these senators (and only a few of them) get the idea that they could use their public, privileged positions to feather their already-comfortable nests? Harder question: is it possible they were looking to the House of Commons and the government for signals on how to get away with pretty much anything? Why aren't we up in arms about lack of accountability from the people we actually elect?

There are two things you should probably know about my friend Charles King and why he would be really bugged by this blog post.

1. It's about him. Charles, a rare breed in Ottawa, wasn't a big seeker of attention.

2. It's written in the past tense. This city lost a very good man early this morning, far too early all together, in fact, when Charles, at the age of 47, passed away after a battle with cancer. That feels very unfair and ridiculous. And trust me, nothing bugged Charles more than unfairness and ridiculousness.

So even though what I'm about to say would bug Charles, and even why many of you reading this blog may not have known him, I'd like to use this space to try to explain what we've lost; why Ottawa feels a bit sadder, a bit more subdued today.